We’ve been a bit quiet, but we’ve been busy so far this year!
In December, the R3V steering committee decided to explore supporting the LTRG executive director, Caryn Wheeler-Clay, as she builds what will be a key organization in our recovery from the Alameda and Obenchain fires as well as our resiliency from any potential future challenges.
Backbone Organization
To step into the work of exploring how we might support Caryn and the LTRG, we had a series of meetings with the LTRG executive committee and full board to discuss in detail how we can support their efforts.
I now meet three times per week with Caryn to support her work and help build the organization. Together, we are working through the details of hiring, the grant writing function, meetings and rationalizing committee structures, board strategic planning, IT infrastructure, and community relationship building.
We have contracted with Sequoia Consulting to begin grant prospecting for the LTRG. This will be invaluable support for Caryn and her teams’ work in the coming months and years. We think OCF for allowing us to use the community rebuilding funds they made available to R3V in a way that will support the recovery of our community.
Housing
The R3V project work on land availability for housing continues as I reach out to the leaders of similar land campaigns in Colorado and California. We already have one deal in the preliminary contract stage and are in discussions with a local institution about their excess land and how we might support converting some of that into housing.
Community Rebuilding
Carrie Turney-Ross of the Jackson County Library System facilitated our last Spanish adult literacy conversation and has agreed to lead the program forward.
Our support of the Zone Captains program continues in a variety of ways and now includes community leadership training, see the course outline here.
Please reach out if you have any thoughts on how we might support the recovery further,
This week we had a panel discussion how we as a community might help support more attainable and affordable housing development by identifying land that might be made available for socially-purposeful building.
Our panelists included
Greg Holmes, 1000 Friends
Margaret Van Vliet, Trillium Advisors
Jason Elzy, JCHA
Anne Marie Alfrey, RVCOG
Daryn Murphy, Developer
Josh LeBombard, DLCD
The questions addressed
The challenge with land availability – JCHA, urban renewal agencies, developers
Other communities – How do others solve for land availability?
Community involvement – How can various sectors and citizens support the project?
Identify possible lots and their owners to project leads
Encourage owners to discuss the possibility of making their land available
Who leads – What team should lead the project to develop a land bank or list?
RVCOG, urban renewal agencies, SOREDI, LTRG, or ?
Securing land – What form of transaction could work? Right of first refusal? Land lease? Fee simple? Cities leasing surplus land.
Housing as infrastructure – What would be different if we thought of housing as community infrastructure? An expert, Jacqueline Waggoner and her testimony
Investment?
Maintenance?
Our key takeaways were:
The challenge
Because buildable, well-located land is so valuable, it’s important to find sellers who have a patient, community-oriented approach to making it available for affordable and attainable housing development.
Medford has done a good job of rezoning to support housing and inventorying their unbuilt lands. Other cities can still do that work.
Daryn Murphy: In a market like Jackson county and all over the state, for that matter, a lot of property owners don’t want to wait that that timeline out so you’re hopeful that, when you initiate conversations with a property owner that they have a an altruistic mindset and maybe you can convince them that this is the right thing to do, and that waiting is going to be beneficial to the Community, but not everybody unfortunately has that has that outlook so it’s it’s often very challenging to get owners to to cooperate.
Actions underway
Commercial and religiously zoned lands can now be used for affordable housing development. For attainable housing too? A policy update?
HB 2001 aims to make more missing middle by upzoning all single family lots to multifamily, ADUs.
HB20918 – inventory all surplus lands made publicly available.
Margaret: Sonoma County created a Council of Infill Builders and coordinated what the jurisdictions could offannexing some urban reserveser in terms of land and incentives to build housing.
In Colorado the Congregation Land Campaign worked to inventory and make available faith-based organization’s land for housing.
Community involvement
Could we look at how we could offer landowners a capital gains tax credit if they sell to an affordable housing developer? Could the state offer a credit equal to the federal capital gains tax on the sale?
How to incorporate and finance utilities to marginal agricultural lands that could be repurposed to housing?
Who leads
Should be a nonprofit organization, not a government agency.
Outreach to landowners is the key to success
Securing land
Purchase is often best for everyone, but leases can work
Leases create an issue with lien seniority for lenders and the lessor. Can we find models for how this can work and statistics on the true scope of the issue?
Housing as infrastructure
How to include this and the related systems development work into the jurisdictions’ capital improvement planning processes? Without tying to this, there’s no funding for housing as infrastructure.
How to create prohousing community understandings that stable housing lowers healthcare and law enforcement costs. Housing is far less expensive than prison and ER visits. Educate the public on social determinants of health.
We need more innovation around housing product types – smaller, built offsite, more density – and around finance – how public investment can set the table for private investment (systems development, land acquisition and entitlements, low income tax credit, public assumption of some risks that cause lenders to increase rates, appraisal practices to support innovation rather than hinder it because of the “no comps” problem.
What can we do now?
LTRG/R3V Housing Working Group to host a conversation around which organizations might hold this effort. SOREDI? LTRG? UnitedWay? Cascade Builders’ Association?
Design what structures and processes will be required to do this work in consultation with the Congregation Land Campaign
Support LTRG in hiring a dedicated housing advocate who can lead this effort.
Begin outreach via our community connections to faith and fraternal organizations. Mapping suitable lots and reaching out to owners, etc.
Experiment and learn to build a process that really works.
The challenge is that we are very short on housing for working families. One reason is that when land becomes available private developers often focus on the “highest and best use” which around here often means building $400,000 condos for retirees.
The problem is that our essential workers, in healthcare, education, public safety, and manufacturing, cannot find affordable housing. This limits everyone’s ability to prosper in our fair valley, employees have a hard time saving or take jobs elsewhere while employers struggle to hire the staff they need.
We have lots of land, but many landowners (families, churches, fraternal organizations, and businesses) do not want to sell their land even if they don’t want to develop it in the near future. Leasing lets the owner own and a developer build with lower upfront costs.
Benefits to the landowner
Retain ownership and future appreciation of land
Regular income
Avoid capital gains that a sale might trigger
Little to no upfront costs to create cash flow
Can support the community by making land available for a great cause
Benefits to the community
More housing faster with lower upfront costs
Secures the land for the life of the building
More people willing to lease than to sell
Prime locations become more accessible – walkability and transit are key
How does it work?
Most land leases are quite straightforward and last 60+ years
Owner agrees to allow the developer to use the property to build and operate housing for upto 99 years
All zoning rules and regular escrow processes are followed
ADU is short for Accessory Dwelling Unit. It can be accessory to detached single-family homes, townhouses, manufactured homes and duplex dwellings on their own lot.
Supports aging in place, generational wealth building, and housing for extended family or friends.
Adds affordable “missing middle” housing options in a moment of critical shortage/ opportunity. Missing middle is everything from ADUs to 8 unit complexes.
Increases property values 25% to 34%. A 2012 study from Portland.
Accelerates mortgage payoff at a time when 24% of Oregon homeowners are mortgage burdened and of that 9% are severely cost burdened- Oregon Center for Public Policy
Reduces the need for cars and increases walking, biking, and transit use.
How an ADU could work for you
ADUs are extremely valuable when it’s time to sell your home.
Studies show that ADUs can increase property values and make homes more desirable to potential buyers, especially those interested in aging-in-place.
Here’s Carlos Delgado, the architect who designed the ADU plans pre approved in the city of Medford talking about his approach to ADUs.
When ADUs might not work
Zoning restrictions – most single family lots can now include an ADU
Not enough space on your lot – buildable area of your lot, set backs, etc.
Access to utilities is expensive – is there enough slope for the sewer line?
Upfront costs of planning and permits
Financing ADU’s can be tricky – check with your banker
The form of your existing house may not make an attached ADU easy – attached ADU example
Check with your local community development staff before you give up on the ADU idea. More info below
How to get started
Here’s Kristen Maze, Director of Community Development at the City of Talent helping you think about preparing to apply for permits to build an ADU.
Trying to Make the Complex Simpler
This process is NOT simple. We are trying to help you get started, but know that there are many options and potential roadblocks along the way. But, as Derek says, the hard work is definitely worth it!
The city of Houston, TX has great ADU resources including a free ebook of plans.
A Few Key Details About ADUs In Your Area
This is only a few key pieces of a much larger puzzle. Check with your local planning department, their contact information is at the top of this table. On your phone, click on the phone number to dial it.
Up to 75% of the primary dwelling’s Gross Habitable Floor Area (GHFA) Detached ADUs cannot be larger than 900 sq. ft.; attached ADUs converted from existing space in the primary home cannot be larger than 50% of the primary dwelling
Other rules
– just a start here, look at more info links for the complete picture
In Portland, some developers who lease your land and build an ADU for you
There is a lot of useful data around cost assumptions and financing options in this document from Santa Cruz County in California. Of course, our fees are different, but many of the construction cost estimates, financing options, etc. are still useful.
ADUs are an important way to fill in the missing middle in our housing supply.
A fun tiny house village in Portland. h/t buildinganadu.com
What Home Builders Can Do to Simplify Later ADU Development
Professional home builders can make ADU development much easier by planning ahead. This video offers a few good ideas.
One creative idea for affordable homes with ADUs is for builders to build the ADU first and sell the large lot with its approved larger home site left for future development. This allows buyers to get started on homeownership more easily while they can look forward to building their larger home once they have built equity in their starter home.
Other Ways to Encourage Missing Middle Development
We’ve talked a lot about reimagining and building back better.
For me, the blessing of this last year has been that you are reimagining and rebuilding what it means to be in community, here in the Rogue Valley, starting in your own heart.
You faced flames, ruins, and sadness and still find that place in your heart that reaches towards hope, that place in your mind that sees a new way forward; you amaze me.
I am encouraged by each of you who:
Knock on the door of a FEMA trailer to find out about a person’s needs
Answer the phones when traumatized, frustrated fire survivors call for help, again
Deliver meal kits to families still living in hotels
Search for the way to improve the process when trauma turns to anger at the overburdened systems of support and recovery
The rebuilding process is slow, but you are doing it. You are looking for ways to reach out, to step up, to meet needs, to bring an ounce of cheer into a sea of challenge and pain.
I am honored to be with you in this process of reimagining and rebuilding ourselves, as a community.
Thank you for including R3V in your work.
Updates and Other Good News
And, of course, our work in the community continues, see our final dashboard of the year here.
Thanks to the Community Rebuilding Fund, a partnership between Oregon Community Foundation, Meyer Memorial Trust, The Ford Family Foundation and The American Red Cross, with primary funding through individual donations and corporate and foundation support, for making our work possible.
Also, I’ve had the honor of facilitating a couple of meetings with local and state housing experts in support of the NewSpirit housing project. Learn more about the project in a great MailTribune article here and on KOBI5 news here.
Finally, The Ford Family Foundation has recently released Oregon By The Numbers report that contains a lot of data that may be helpful in strategic planning and grant applications for your organization.
